


A New Home

by the_red_one1223



Category: Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comic), Sonic the Hedgehog - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, I just wanted fluff, also if I am somehow forgetting to tag something please let me know!, and for some pre-wave characters to live in a possible post-wave world
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-01
Updated: 2019-01-16
Packaged: 2019-09-05 01:05:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 8,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16800619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_red_one1223/pseuds/the_red_one1223
Summary: Well, this was not what Elias Acorn expected when he woke up today: being stranded in another universe with his team, the Secret Freedom Fighters, and now having to raise a few of the Freedom Fighters in this new universe. Easier said than done.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So most of the first few chapters were written when I was doing NaNo (National Novel Writing Month) so please try not to be too confused since I'm posting them during the first day of December.
> 
> I also should mention that I was in the mood for fluff and I kinda got inspired by a thread I had on tumblr (where Elias met with a four-year-old Tails from a possible different universe) which made me wanted to do this fanfic, but I was holding off until NaNo started to even start writing it. ....also I'm sorry for any fourth-wall-breaking that'll happen in some chapters.

He hated mornings, Elias determined as he hissed at the sudden bright light startled him awake. He rubbed his eyes, feeling a splitting headache coming on as he first started glaring at the intrusion of his sleep. It wasn’t until he sat up that he pieced together that someone, one of the wolf twins, had simply turned on the light in his small office. “What is it, Leeta?” he asked as the wolf came inside the room. Jeez, what did he drink last night?

“One, it’s Lyco, and two, you really need to come and see this,” she simply said coming in further into the room and tugging at his arm. “Come on!” the blue clad wolf urged, Elias almost comparing her to a child who wanted to show him that Christmas came early.

Elias kept a bemused smile as he followed her, glad that his headache was slowly ebbing away as they walked. Now what was the last thing he recall doing before finding himself slumped over his desk? He remembered saying goodnight to his family before retreating here to look over some reports from what the others did as side missions. There was a concerning report about Eggman finding a new power source, but he couldn’t recollect the details. Curious.

Leeta, er, Lyco, lead him to the debriefing room where he felt his jaw just drop at the sight. One of his friends, a black hedgehog robot, was up and moving and he was...crouching? The last time the squirrel saw Shard, he was...and they were... it was like there was no damage to the guy! He looked over to both twins looking as confused and shocked as he was feeling. But...what was the Metal Sonic even doing?

“Hey, it’s ok! We’re not gonna hurt you!” the robot reassured, talking to someone that was hiding under the briefing room table. Shard looked back at the others and looked confused as their befuddled expressions. “What’s with those faces?”

“You’re....you’re alive,” Elias stumbled over his words, struggling to find his voice. Even his Power Gem wasn’t damaged. “Do you.... recall anything?” he asked, looking over at the others. Where were Larry and Silver? They would be ecstatic to see their friend up and moving once more! Maybe Harvey or Charles figured something out while they were asleep last night, that had to have been it!

The robot shook his head. “I mean, I remember bits and pieces, but right now we have a slight problem here,” Shard brushed off before gesturing to the figure he was talking to. He moved out of the way for Elias to crouch down to see what was going on.

Oh!

A...child.

...in their base.

The yellow fox shook as he stared at the squirrel with wide blue eyes, clutching one of his tails tightly-

wait what.

Elias squinted, seeing the second tail twitching occasionally behind him. “....Tails?” he murmured, looking back at the others. “Go find out where Silver or Harvey or.... someone is at! I’ll stick around here,” the squirrel ordered, carefully sitting down by where the table was. He didn’t even watch to see if they left, though by the sound of things all three of them did, leaving him and the boy.

Ok, so he’s...dealing with a possible time travel situation, or maybe Tails had a bad science experiment (or Eggman was involved but he wasn’t going to go there just yet). No worries, he just had to....treat him like...a child. Then again the Tails he was familiar was also one, but this was.... clearly much younger, possibly three, four years old tops. Barely older than his own little girl... focus, King!

“Hey there big guy...” Elias softly spoke, hoping to help calm the trembling child. “How did you get down here?”

The fox shook his head before attempting to bury his face into the tail he was clinging to. “I-I don’t... I-I don’t know...I just...I don’t wanna go back...” he squeaked.

“Go back where?” Elias asked, trying to keep himself from scooting a bit closer. Maybe it was just that... fatherly instinct kicking in, but goddamn he was hurt that this child, this smaller version of his friend was this.... afraid.

“The...orph-orpho...” Tails struggled to say, having to stop to try sounding it out a couple times quietly to himself. “Orph...o....opera......nage. Orph-an-nage O-orphanage!” The fox looked a tiny bit pleased with himself as Elias offered a small smile.

“The orphanage, huh? Well...” he paused, trying to figure out how to ask the next question. “I’m sorry, but I don’t believe we got each others names. My name is Elias, what’s yours if you don’t mind me asking?”

The fox was slowly starting to relax, though he was still holding one of his tails close to him like a lifeline. “M-Miles...” Miles sniffled as he sat up a bit straighter. “What’s... what’s gonna happen to me?”

Oh dear...well he had no way of knowing how or why Tails, er, Miles? was like this now. “How about we look around? I’m afraid I’m not familiar with this area and a boy like you would probably like some fresh air, right?” Maybe investigate to see if they somehow wound up in a new zone or at least ask Harvey what’s going on ... it would explain why Shard is up and moving if it was a new zone.

The boy nodded, crawling out from under the table. He barely stifled a giggle as Elias bonked his head as he tried to stand up from his spot.

“And that’s why we make sure we look before we leap,” the squirrel said, offering his hand to the child who took it eagerly. Looks like he was making some progress... but until he figured out what was going on, this was a mystery.

The two started exploring the base for the members that were here earlier. “Where are they?” Elias muttered, confused as neither of them has found a trace of them. “Leeta? Lyco!” he called out, hoping to find them better or at least get them to come here.

“M-Mr. Robo!” Tails, er Miles, yelled as well. It was so weird trying to call him Miles when he only knew him as Tails.

“Kid, you need to do it right! It’s ‘Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto!” Shard’s voice was heard near the entrance of the base. Why was here over there? The squirrel picked up the fox and quickly walked there, only to be stumped by the next sight he saw.

Larry Lynx was right beside a smaller version of Silver. And of course Mr. Chuck had a smaller version of his nephew, who was trying to get the gray hedgehog to play tag. “Well, good to know I’m not imagining things,” the lynx sighed. “Or caused them,” he added under his breath.

Of course Silver was hiding behind Larry to stay away from Shard who was doing a very bad attempt at the robot. ....Elias would question that but then again would Eggman even program dance moves into his creations? ...ok maybe, but besides the point!

“Chuck, what’s going on here?” Elias asked, watching as the small blue hedgehog went over to them. And Tails was clutching him tighter as a result.

“Hi, I’m Sonic, and, and I like your tails! What’s your name?” he energetically stated, the fox attempting to hide his face.

“M-Miles.”

“Laaaame, I’m gonna call you Tails! New nickname!” Sonic proclaimed. He looked around and did a stage whisper to the fox as Elias crouched down. “My real name’s really stupid too. It’s **_Maurice_**.” He then pointed over to the shy gray hedgehog. “That, that’s Silver, and, and, his name is so cool so I gotta be cool too! So I’m Sonic now!”

Elias tried not to burst out laughing at the real reason that Sonic was called that. Or at least in this zone. “Well, he seems like a nice kid; did you wanna play with Sonic, Tails?” he asked, the fox hesitating before nodding. And off the two went to play in the base and wait this was probably a bad idea.

“Hold on, squirts!” Chuck said, quickly scooping them up. “How about instead of playing down here, we go outside to the park or something?” he suggested, leading the way outside. “From the looks of things, we have a lot to discuss and try and figure out...”


	2. Chapter 2

If someone had told him last week that he would be watching three child-versions of his friends playing at a park today, Elias would have to ask ‘did Eggman do it?’ But that doesn’t seem to be the case as Chuck had effectively pointed out a man that looked to be a younger version of the mad scientist working on an invention a few tables away. What on Mobius was going on??

“So we’re...in an alternate zone? But wouldn’t the Zone Cops found out about us?” Elias asked. “I mean, this seems...weird that they haven’t tried to contact us or anything!”

Chuck rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, that’s not...entirely true. Zonic came by when I woke up to Sonic jumping on my bed. After I sent the tyke to a different room to play, the cop kinda...explained we may have been...misplaced.”

“Misplaced?” Larry asked, looking just as confused as Elias was.

“Well...we’re kinda...a few...out of....two....hundred or more?” the elder hedgehog sighed.

“Excuse us?!” Elias and Larry proclaimed, slamming their hands on the table as they stood up. “How do you misplace two hundred people?? From one _**Zone**_??”

“It’s weird and complicated, something about Sega and how I’m apparently not Sonic’s uncle anymore wherever everyone else ended up or something? Look I don’t know the details, only that some of our friends are safe but we’re...not. Zonic told us until they figured out who’s missing or where we’re supposed to go, we’re stuck here and we can’t do anything. I’m sorry.”

Elias groaned, sitting back down and running a hand down his face. Great. Awesome. Amazing. The squirrel couldn’t help but notice that the lynx beside him looked confused still. “What’s wrong besides...well, the obvious?” he asked.

“Well, wouldn’t this Sonic know about Zonic or about us by now? I mean, he’s probably curious, and he’s a kid so he probably at least tried to eavesdrop, right?” Larry pointed out. “And even if that wasn’t the case, did we replace whoever was living here before us? Because Sonic knew about you at least, right?”

Chuck hummed, nodding in agreement. “Maybe, but I called the kiddo Maurice by accident-” he stopped when he got stares from the other two. “I was half asleep, so sue me! Anyways, he seemed surprised that I knew him, but he didn’t recognize me. I’m not sure what caused that, but I might not exist in this world either...though how he got into my lab I’m not sure on; he just said he was exploring and stumbled across it.”

“And Silver was right outside HQ when I found him,” Larry explained.

“And Tails was already inside when we found him...this is...ugh, this is already a strange day and I’m not even sure what is supposed to happen next? Do we stay in the base? I mean, we clearly have areas we have access to like our homes, but we don’t even know what kinda state this world is in! What if we’re kids at this point too??” Elias pointed out.

Larry held up a finger as he started listed off a few things, “ok, one, clearly Robotnik or Eggman aren’t evil because they haven’t tried anything and if they did, we’d just be repeating history. Two, We might not exist in this world because from the looks of things, this is effecting mostly everyone that’s not in our team, but Silver was part of the team so he’s a child in this universe. Three, we see if our own homes are still even here because Chuck may have been lucky and brought his lab with. Who knows!” He looked up to see Elias was staring at him. “What? We’re not the only ones that got here and we should probably talk to the king or whoever’s in charge. Remember that there might be two hundred more people waking up here and in the same situation as we are!”

“Except that we’re going to have to deal allies as well as enemies in those two hundred...” Elias groaned, placing his head on the table. He liked today before he woke up. “Who wants to go and talk to them?”

“We all will. Though we’ll have to leave the kids alone with the others and I’ll bring a few things to help prove our case so we’re not thrown in jail or worse, but they should be aware if Zonic and his team didn’t alert them already.”

Larry looked thoughtful as he listened. “I mean, that does make sense because why would you dump a few hundred people in a new world and **_not_ **tell the people in charge that there’s new people. It wouldn’t make any sense!”

“Well, we’ll go by there and ask about it then. What’s the worse that can happen?” Elias asked, pushing himself off of his seat.

“Robotnik doing his world domination thing in the middle of the conversation?” Larry suggested.

“Larry, no! No bad luck today!” Chuck ordered as he followed after the king, er, ex-king.

_This was gonna be a long day..._ Elias thought as he and the others got the kids together to take them back to the base. As he carried the small fox, he couldn’t help but think that he should check where he used to live, to see if it still exists or if his wife and step-daughter made it over alright.

As they went down the slide, he was greeted with the sight of Harvey trying to keep an angry Meg away from an annoyed Shard. Uh oh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> .....So I'm also gonna admit that I have no idea if I'm doing any of these characters justice sooooo....sorry if I'm not.


	3. Chapter 3

Chuck and Elias quickly set down the kids they were holding and quickly started helping in the keep away.

“Elias?? What are you- This robot nearly killed us!” Meg shouted, trying to aim the crossbow that he was now realizing was in her hands. How did she get one, oh right they’re in the base and he had one stashed away in his office. She must’ve woke up in a different room with Harvey. “He nearly killed Antoine! Why are you defending him??”

“Because Shard is an ally and that was a different Metal Sonic!” Elias told her, vaguely hearing ‘he’s a metal me?? I turn into a robot in the future???’ from Sonic in the background. “Meg, we’re not here to fight against each other! Not now. We....we have some small guests with us.”

Meg looked angry and skeptical until she glanced past Elias to see Larry standing by the three kids. “Is that....?” she quietly asked, looking to the squirrel who nodded. “Oh my goodness...”

“We’re in a new zone...the only ones who aren’t effected have been our small group and....about...two hundred others,” he whispered, placing his hands on her shoulders. “We’re going to talk things out with the king and we need someone to watch them. Just for a tiny bit. Where’s...where’s Alexis?”

“I-in the other room, trying to take a nap,” she replied. “I...we can watch them. But after this, we’re gonna have to talk about....that thing.”

“Of course,” he nodded, kissing her cheek. “Just...try not to kill him while we’re gone, alright? We already lost him once and yes, I’ll explain that too. Now put the crossbow away and I’m sure everyone in the base will help.”

Chuck playfully elbowed the robot, quickly rubbing the spot because flesh and metal do not mix! “Same goes for you, Shard. No killing.”

Shard couldn’t help but smirk at that with a playful, “aw, not even a little?” He waved the trio off as they started to leave. “We’ll see you guys in a bit!”

Elias started to go up first only for the leg of his pants to be grabbed; he gazed down to see that Tails was holding on tight. Right, probably not wise to leave a child alone with someone he doesn’t know. He picked up the fox and brought him over to Meg. “Tails, this is my wife, Meg. I know you don’t want me to leave, but I need to talk to someone very important, but I’ll be right back. She’s gonna help watch over you guys while we’re gone, ok?”

The small fox nodded, still a bit nervous being around the other. Meg smiled reassuringly at him in response. “Hey, little fella; I think I have some building blocks that my daughter likes to play with. I bet you’re the type that enjoys building things, huh?”

“Y-yeah.”

“Wanna build a few things with me? It might not be much, but I’m sure we’ll find other neat things to do while we’re waiting for him.”

“And I’ll join you guys in the fun,” Elias grinned, getting a smile from the toddler as he transferred him over to her. “Alright, you go have fun with Mrs. Meg, ok? I’ll see you in a little bit, alright?”

Ok, time to get going and figure out what was going on

\--

Elias was...surprised by how quickly that went. They went in, talked to King Nigel (that was something he wasn’t used to saying, let alone think since his father was under a different name) and was told that they were getting some housing underway. There were a few places already set up thanks to Zonic and his team, so the king had given them the keys, hoping it’ll help with the transition.

During their talks, the king told them of his plans to announce about the situation to the kingdom and would like them to also be there to help out. The younger squirrel couldn’t help but worry about whatever villains also ended up in this whole arrangement. There had to been some, right? ~~(Probably not because I just wanna write some fluff).~~

After checking out their housing, the trio made it back to HQ, where they found all three kids chatting animatedly as they colored on some papers that they were positive that Harvey provided as Meg responded back to them, asking them questions now and then, and heck, even Shard was participating in the coloring.

“You gotta, you gotta use yellow!” Silver said, trying to give the crayon to Sonic. “That’s the sun!”

“No way! I’m makin’ my sun blue because I wanna!” the blue hedgehog said. “It’s an alien planet so it’s gonna look blue! You should make your sun green!”

“But you need the green for the aliens!” Tails pointed out.

“Oh right, right!”

“Hey, check out this fish I drew!” Shard said, the boys clamoring over to check it out because they never seen a robot draw like this before!

Well, Elias couldn’t help but feel a slight bit jealous as the trio of boys kept chatting as Meg approached the other adults. “Hey, hon,” he said, kissing her sweetly. “What’s up?”

“They...don’t have homes, do they?” Well that wasn’t the first thing that he was expecting, but it..was a legit question.

Chuck sighed and rubbed the back of his head. “Not from what we can see. The king’s gonna make an announcement about it all, and I’m gonna try and do what I can to help with everything. Maybe send out a line to see what’s going on with Sonic’s folks. But he’s my nephew no matter what universe I’m in, so Sonic’ll be staying with me until then.”

“And if Silver’s like ours, he’s probably from the future so I could take him in! There’s plenty of room at the lodging that I got. Heck, you guys could room with me,” Larry said as the elder owl looked down at the lynx. “I-If you guys want to, that is.”

“Well, if anything, it would benefit the child to make sure that he’s well cared for so I suppose he could use a grandfather figure,” Harvey pointed out.

“I think me and my family will have to pass on that rooming offer and-” Elias teased before Meg leaned in and whispered something in his ear. He looked surprised by the suggestion. “You...you what?”

“I...think we should adopt Tails. He’s definitely seemed to have bonded with us and sending him back would...destroy him,” the squirrel reasoned. She was right and Elias nodded at that. “I’m sure there’s paperwork and whatnot involved, but we don’t know how long we’ll be here! We might be stuck here for the rest of our lives and I-”

“Meg, we should probably look into that orphanage if we’re doing this,” he stated, cutting her off as he took her hand. “Ok, we have a vague plan about everything, but....we’re gonna do this!”

“Wait, what about the twins and Shard?” Larry asked.

“.....they’re part of the vague plan! The plan that has to be done later!”

“I CALL THE SOFA ON ELIAS’ HOME,” Shard shouted, the boys covering their ears from the sudden volume shift. “Sorry guys!” he quickly apologized before taking quick notice that the ex-queen was staring at him. “What?? I’d make a great uncle, clearly! You’ve seen how well I work with these squirts.”

Meg sighed and rolled her eyes. “We’ll see.”

Sonic leaned over to Tails and whispered, “you’re so lucky you have a robot for an uncle!”

“Robo-uncle!” Silver whispered as well, grinning in excitement because this was so cool and fun and everything was just awesome!

So to wrap up this chapter because....let’s face it, you all wanna read the rest of the fluff in this fanfic and do we really wanna go through the rest of the filler of how Elias filled out the paperwork and blah blah blah? No? Ok then: Elias and Meg adopted Tails, Shard somehow ended up living with them; Leeta and Lyco are rooming together, Harvey and Larry are basically grandfather and dad to Silver and Uncle Chuck is still an uncle to Sonic.

We got it? Ok, awesome! Also sorry for kinda breaking the fourth wall there, I felt like it was necessary at this point.


	4. Chapter 4

Chuck had noticed something odd over the last few days at his lab. Sometimes he’ll come in the morning and find a previous project be further along than he would like. Sometimes he’ll come in the evening and notice that a tiny fridge that he had stocked with his dinner that morning (because sometimes he did pull all-nighters much to Sonic’s dismay) was mysteriously gone.

Heck, he even tried to install some hidden cameras to figure out who this mysterious food-thief-inventor was, only for the devices to be dismantled by the time he went to check the footage. He was stumped because clearly whoever it was wasn’t staying during the day and was only showing up after he left the lab.

“Should we get Uncle Elias involved?” Sonic asked. “Or I can get ‘em! I bet I can be quick enough to beat ‘em up and-”

“No way squirt! I appreciate that fighting spirit, son, but I don’t want you getting hurt if I can help it,” Chuck interjected. “But I’ll see if we can come up with something. And yes, you can help before you even ask.”

“You totally read my mind!”

“I’m just used to your antics!” he said, ruffling the tyke’s head. “Now come on, let’s go see what we can come up with!”

So about half an hour later (let’s face it, we’re not spending an entire chapter of them trying to plan this particular thing out), Shard just finally decided to be part of a stakeout by hiding in a tree and using his heat visor to see when this mysterious person was coming in and alert Chuck when they did.

And at around nearly 10 PM, the robot had picked up on a small figure on his scanners and watched as the figure got the hidden key (Chuck, hide your spare keys better, damn it) and went inside the lab and closed it quietly behind them. A quick alert (and about fifteen minutes after that) later and the hedgehog trio (Chuck, Sonic and Shard) approached the door. Chuck and Shard had tried to leave Sonic alone, but Sonic was insistent in coming, so they had to drag him with.

Chuck went in first because Shard had an arm canon and he really didn’t want the guy to shoot someone who’s probably innocent (well mostly. The person was stealing his sandwiches); And if the person was a threat, at least Shard could watch over Sonic or get him out if things go...bad. Though he was surprised to see a purple walrus already hunched over in the fridge.

“Aw man, I thought he restocked,” a squeakish voice echoed. Holy crap, this was just a kid...wait...

“Rotor?” Uncle Chuck asked softly, keeping a hand out to keep Shard from advancing, but it looked like the robot had no intention as he lowered his weapon, probably hearing that this was a kid, who was probably ten if he had to guess? At least a few years older than Sonic.

It was enough to get the poor kid to scramble away from the fridge like his hand was caught in the cookie jar. ...well, that was a bit too literal considering the walrus had a small cookie jar in his hands. “I-I didn’t steal anything!” he said before quickly stuffing the jar back into the fridge. “I-I was just...looking!”

Chuck and Shard looked at each other before the robot picked up Sonic and started leaving the lab. “Hey!” the small blue hedgehog squeaked.

“Relax, kid, your uncle has this in the bag! We’ll just wait outside for them!” Shard simply said, waving to the older hedgehog as he went to take a seat and offered one to the walrus.

The kid hesitantly looked at it before sliding into it. “You...you knew my name. Did...did you get my letters?” he timidly asked. “Am...am I in trouble?

Chuck shook his head. “I’m sure I’ve gotten a few of them, but the last few weeks have been crazy so I may have misplaced them,” he explained. “As for being in trouble, I really doubt you’re in trouble, or at least something that a few chores wouldn’t fix. Gotta pay back for those sandwiches somehow,” he teased, watching as the kid giggled a little at that. “So what brings you out all the way out here?” he asked.

“Well, I heard that you’re like this...really famous guy from another world!” he explained. “And-and I wanted to meet you and help you out!”

“Without your parents knowing?” the hedgehog asked, raising an eye brow at that.

The walrus sunk in his seat as his parents were brought up. “Well...Dad really doesn’t care about what I do? And my mom...Mom’s not here anymore,” he explained. “So, I kinda...left. Go to where I’d be appreciated and stuff...”

Chuck felt a rolling anger in his stomach but sighed to try and vent it out. He’ll just deal with that later if that ever comes up, but right now, he had a scared and hungry kid on his hands. Anger is not the best solution. “Ok then. I won’t press the matter on that further. Come on then,” he stated, getting up from his seat. “There’s some leftover macaroni and cheese back at the house and I think the sofa is probably a lot comfier than whatever you’ve been sleeping in for the last few weeks. It’ll do for the next few days at least until we get a bed somewhere.”

Rotor looked shocked and sheepish at that. “Y-you noticed?” he asked, tugging his yellow baseball cap down a little. It...looked a bit weird considering it was still being worn backwards and all that. “And...and you’re letting me stay??”

“Well, you’d either be sleeping here or somewhere else, but come on! I got a nephew to put to bed and you clearly need something to eat if you’re trying to raid my mini-fridge again,” he said, offering a hand to the kid. The walrus nodded and gladly took his hand as the two went outside to see Shard holding a sleeping Sonic. “Thanks for watching him, Shard.”

“No problem, Gramps,” the robot replied, following along side him. “So this is our little sandwich thief?”

“And our little helper in the lab. Though, I should probably go over why some of those adjustments you suggested on the plans were a bad idea, but that’s for another time!” the older hedgehog said, looking down at the walrus. “You have food and rest to worry about!”

Rotor just shyly smiled, glad that this man wasn’t mad at him or...anything! The scientist was honestly better the people in his village and his dad and was actually willing to correct him or show him why some stuff was wrong. Coming here was the best idea the walrus had in his life.


	5. Chapter 5

It was a chilly afternoon with the four kids playing around on the daycare’s playground while waiting for their parents to pick them up after their jobs. Today’s game was hide and seek and Rotor was It. Now Sonic was supposed to be hiding, but the blue speedster was busy squinting as he looked at the slide. “Hey, who’s that?” he asked, the tiny fox beside him shrugging as he peered over to look too. The kid looked like Mr. Shard, but smaller and....with more red. “I’m gonna say hi!” he declared. And off he went.

“S-Sonic!” Tails cried, standing up from his hiding spot.

“I see you, Tails!” Rotor called out, starting to run over. “You better get to base before I get ya!”

“Noooo! I don’t wanna be It again!”

Meanwhile, Sonic ran over to the new hedgehog. “Hiya, I’m Sonic, what’s your name?” he greeted at the very serious looking kid.

“My name is Shadow, not that it’s of any importance to you!”

And the speedster was confused. “Well, of course it’s important cause I wouldn’t have asked otherwise! Also you told me your name soooo that’s confusing. You wanna play Hide and Seek?” he asked. “I can ask if it’s alright for you to join, though this place has really bad hiding spots.”

“I don’t ‘play’ anything. I’m a powerful being created fifty years ago-”

Oh so he’s playing pretend instead! Cool! “Then I’ll be someone created over a billion years ago!” Sonic said, watching as the boy looked at him in extreme confusion.

“You can’t be someone made that long ago! You’d be dead by now!”

“Says the kid that said was created fifty years ago! So maybe I’m super most powerful person!”

Shadow ran a hand down his face. “But I’m supposed to be the most powerful!”

“Why can’t we both be the most powerful? Then we can be like superheroes and save the day!” Sonic pointed out, placing his hands on his hips. Seriously, why couldn’t he be the most powerful? That’s no fun in a game of pretend!

“It doesn’t work like that!!” Shadow stated angrily, stamping his foot down a few times. Wow he’s angry. Like, possibly having weird green stuff coming out of his hands angry. The boy must’ve realized what he was doing as he looked like he was about to throw something when a girl’s voice shouted,

“Shadow! Ivo’s here, it’s time to go!” the boys looked over to see a blonde human girl standing by the entrance fence with a older man. He almost looked like an egg! “You know how my cousin gets!”

Shadow groaned, opting to kicking the ground before stalking off. “This isn’t over, Faker!”

The blue hedgehog just stared dumbfounded as the black hedgehog left with the two humans, all while the other kid just glared at him. “I just, but he and...but...I....what just happened?!” Sonic declared as Rotor came over. “You saw that right??”

The walrus shrugged before tapping his head. “Not really, but you’re It for our game.”

“ARGH!!”


	6. Chapter 6

Shard couldn’t believe that he had to go shopping with Tails today. Er, tonight. It was late, like nearly two in the morning, but Elias and Meg needed their rest with Alexis starting to gain her first tooth (which was weird, because wasn’t she already nearly one? Oh well) and the Metal Sonic was bored as hell.

But then the fox had to wake up while he was about to head out so the robot left a hastily scribbled note saying that they went to the store and now they’re at one of those weird 24/7 stores meandering around. And by meandering, they totally just rode down the aisles on one of the shopping carts, Tails squealing in delight as he urged his uncle to go faster.

Shard was just about to comply when he spotted a familiar face down the medicine aisle, slowing his speed to push the cart over to the lynx. “Larry? What are you doing here?” he asked, Tails yawning a little as he sat down in his seat in the basket portion of the cart.

Larry looked up and rubbed his eyes, the robot noting the bags under his eyes. “Silver got sick an hour ago and I’m picking up some medicine while Harvey watches him...” he explained, barely stifling a yawn. “What about you? Did Tails get sick?”

Tails shook his head. “N-nope! Not me! Uncle Shard didn’t wanna stay in the house, and, and I had couldn’t...” the fox yawned again which made the lynx yawn. “Couldn’t sleep...” he mumbled, now rubbing at his eyes.

The lynx looked over at Shard and sighed. “You should get him home soon; Elias is gonna get mad if he sees that you took him away in the middle of the night!” he tried to reason but Shard just shrugged.

“I know, but I don’t wanna make any trips back and forth and it’ll be fine! I’ll take him home once he falls asleep; besides, I wanna check out some of that Christmas decorations on the other end of the store!” he said, pointing over towards his next destination.

“It’s a little unsettling considering we’re barely in November...” Larry commented, watching as Shard started pushing off on his cart.

“I know! You organics are weird with your holidays and stuff; anyways, we’ll see ya later! Let’s go, buddy!” 

The fox mumbled in agreement, curling up on his spot making Shard reconsider his movements. He...really didn’t wanna go home too early, but if Tails was starting to fall asleep, he couldn’t help that...besides, he didn’t bring money so he couldn’t buy a jacket or a blanket to keep the fox warm.

The robot decided it would be best to keep it slow and go from there (besides he was certain he was getting glares from some of the workers there). And away the robot and two-tailed fox went to check out the Christmas stuff. Larry was right, it was unsettling to see Christmas stuff being brought out nearly full force barely days after Halloween had ended.

But stockings and vague gift boxes were... boring after the first aisle or two. “Yeesh, you’d think that there would be something more.... interesting...” Shard muttered, occasionally glancing down to check on Tails who was sound asleep.

Ok, looks like he had to wrap this up soon, for the fox’s sake as well as his own since, well, Larry did have a point about Elias being mad. And don’t even get him started on Meg. Do not want an angry mama on his hands in a few hours, no thanks! Well there was that as well as the fact that this store was pretty dead.

He was about to turn around when he spotted some large Christmas decorations and piqued his interest as he pushed the cart over. As he neared closer, he realized that these were all for decorating the outside of one’s house, which, well, yeah makes sense. He’s seen other buildings dressing up their houses for Halloween so why not one for Christmas too?

But he really didn’t have an interest for decorating the house, especially this early and started to turn around.

“Greetings and Happy Holidays!” a mechanical voice chirped out suddenly and loudly, both causing the fox to be startled awake and Shard to retaliate by firing his arm cannon at the sudden intruder. The two stared as they realized it was just an animatronic snowman display that had suddenly started talking to them.

... and Shard had destroyed the thing by blasting a hole in its chest.

“........ ok. Time to go!” the Metal Sonic declared, scooping up the fox and more or less running towards the exit and avoiding any employees that were on their way over to investigate the noise. Well it wouldn’t be hard to figure out considering he was the only robot in the store (hell the entire city if he had to guess) but Shard had promptly booked it out of there and immediately flew off back to the house.

Once he landed on the front steps (thank you super speed), he looked down at the trembling fox that clung to him. He sighed and rubbed his back as he entered the house. “Hey, it’s ok... that was my fault... I didn’t mean to scare ya like that, buddy.”

“C-cold,” the fox whimpered. “I-it’s really cold outside.” Oh thank Gaia, the robot didn’t traumatized young fox as he made a beeline to Tails’ bedroom and grabbing a blanket. ... at least he hoped he didn’t scare the toddler for life. The fox sighed contently as Shard placed the blanket over him as the robot walked to the couch and plopped down there. “Are...are you in trouble, Uncle Shard?” he quietly asked, starting to feel like he was going to go back to sleep. He was under a warm blanket, his uncle was warm... everything was really good.

“I’m not sur,e little bud, but we’ll find out in the morning, ok, bud?” he reassured, gently patting the kid’s head. “Let’s get some sleep, alright?”

“G’night, Uncle Shard...”

“G’night, kiddo.”

Shard went into sleep mode for the next few hours only to be tapped by Elias on the forehead. “Wha?” he asked a bit confused before the squirrel held up a piece of paper. It took him a second to realize that was the note he left last night. “Oh...right.” He knew he forgot to do something...

“Is... this why I got a call on my cell phone saying that you’re banned from the local supermarket?”

Shard stared at him before turning his head to face the ceiling. “... I officially hate Christmas.”


	7. Chapter 7

Geoffrey was liking this new world. He didn’t know how, but that weird wave or whatever managed to kick Ixis out of his body and he couldn’t help but feel at ease. Sure, he was trying to avoid certain familiar faces (seriously the Wolf Twins were practically everywhere when he went out some days), but it was pretty ok!

Speaking of avoiding, he thought he saw Larry with ‘Ace’ (though he was smaller than he remembered him) and he’ll use his wind magic to go across the street as a puff of smoke to the bus bench aaaand safe! It still hurts to use magic (doesn’t help that there’s not that much magic in this world from what he could tell, or maybe he was just that out of practice), but as long as he uses it sparingly, he should be fine! The skunk took a seat in the bench as the two didn’t notice his disappearing act.

He sighed in relief, only for his ears to go up as he heard the bench squeak beside him. He looked over to see a small black fox staring at him intently. They had a red baseball cap that was being worn backwards and a matching red hoodie that looked like they were wearing it as a dress. The stare was a bit unsettling, but whatever, he can deal with a kid for a minute.

“Um...hello?” he greeted and the kid started waving their hands rapidly. It took him a couple seconds for him to realize that the kid was using sign language and that they were asking him questions. At least he recalled how it went so he was able to pick up on it.

_“-id that? That was cool! Can you teach me that? Was that magic??”_

Well, his sign language skills were a bit rough in practice, mostly using hand signals to direct his team, but he was going to try and answer back the same way they were talking. _“Yes. Was wind spell. Who...you?”_

The kid just watched him struggle with what should be basic words before just waving their hands to get him to stop and said, _“my hearing’s fine. Just can’t talk.”_ They honestly just looked ecstatic to see that the guy understood them at all!

“Oh thank, Chaos,” Geoffrey muttered, equally relieved that he didn’t have to do that. He should honestly brush up on that. “That...that was magic, yes, but it’s very difficult to use at times.”

_“Can you teach me??”_

Teach them magic? He was a bit hesitant, given that his old master had taken advantage of him when he was a boy, grieving for his father at the time. “Why?” he asked.

_“Cause magic’s cool. Duh.”_

Of course, with the world at peace and no one hurt or dying in a war or from one, magic seemed just that: magical and wondrous. It seemed obvious to him now, who learned the art to survive. “I...suppose I could teach you a trick or two-” he said, watching as the kid beamed widely at that. Perhaps in another life, that could’ve been him if he was wiser or had a kinder being for a master.

His thoughts were interrupted as two arms wrapped around him in a hug. The skunk tensed as he wasn’t expecting the child to do that. “I-I don’t suppose I could get your name?” he asked, the fox backing away and starting to sign again.

_“Kikki, my name’s Kikki!”_ she hopped to her feet and added, _“and I’m gonna be the world’s first mute magical girl!”_ And she struck a pose before trying to do another one before crossing her arms and tapped her foot. _“.....coming up with cool heroic poses are hard.”_

...Well at least he can say that she was definitely an interesting child, he thought with a chuckle. “I’m not sure if you should focus on that just yet. Maybe after a spell or two.”

The skunk got up and started heading back to his lodging though, he did notice that Kikki was following him still. “You should head back home soon.”

_“Aw, but I wanted to learn something! At least your name!”_

Ah, right. He never did properly introduce himself. “My name is Geoffrey St. John and your lessons will start....tomorrow at ten. We’ll meet here when I am not busy running errands.” A bit of a lie, but he did need to do some things and...not run into any people he knew from his old world.

_“It’s a deal!”_

He waved goodbye as the child scampered off, wondering if his own child would’ve been like that if Hershey was still here before his thoughts came to a halt. This was a new world. People he knew were in this world and some were....not the same as the ones he knew if ‘Ace’ was any indication, but was there a chance that his wife was alive? There were several hundred people that were transported and....if Ixis was expelled from his mind, maybe there was a chance that his wife had returned to the world of the living as well? Well, there was only one thing he had to do before the day was done.

“I need to find Sir Charles.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...that awkward feeling when you have to rename an OC because apparently their original name is a swear or inappropriate in another language. ...even though you kinda named them after the main character of a Ghibli Studio film that you loved watching as a child.
> 
> ...what I'm trying to say is that I only added one letter because Pokemon didn't like the name Kiki so I had to add a letter to make it accept it as a Pokemon nickname so I have to apply that logic with this OC child of mine.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh hey, two-for-one update!
> 
> .....pretty much all we're gonna get today, but I do have a few chapters that are...slowly being written.

Well it was a nice Saturday morning and Shard was on his way over to Uncle Chuck's place because the elder hedgehog needed someone to watch over Sonic while he and Rotor attended a science fair. Sure, Sonic was interested in his uncle's work, but even he knew that it was going to be boooooring.

And Tails and Alexis were coming with because Elias and Meg asked if he could watch the two so they could have a romantic day together.

Of course that means that he couldn't fly without Alexis, being the tiny tot that she was, screaming at the sudden ear popping, so he had to walk all the way there. So it was a rough start, but whatever. Better than being stopped by someone yelling about 'no flying in a no fly zone' or something.

Though the thing that the robot wasn't expecting was seeing Chuck holding two toddlers in his arms when the trio arrived. "Uh, what's this?"

"Sonic's little brother and sister," he explained as the pink hedgehog wiggled to get down. As he set the tots down, the two running in squealing for Sonic, er, Maury. ....that was still a weird fact that Sonic was named that in this universe. "This is Sonia and Manic and Sonic's parents wanted us to watch them for the day at the last second since we're already watching Sonic."

Shard stared at him and could see a distraught Rotor in the window. ...oh no. Oooooh nooooo. Shard was going to regret this. He was so going to regret this as he gritted his teeth and steeled his nerves. He was doing it for Rotor and Chuck. He was doing it because if he didn't, he was going to deal with sad people and he can't do sad!

"I'll...watch them today," he said, Tails looking excited and nervous about it because now he has new playmates with Sonic but they're still strangers! Even if they were Sonic's siblings...

Chuck looked shock at the reply. "Shard, you already have three kids to watch. I'm not dumping you alone with two more that are barely potty trained."

The Metal Sonic quickly waved it off. "I'll be fine! It's just for a few hours! You'll be back by, what, tomorrow at the latest? We'll be fine!" he reassured. "And I can always call Elias to pick up his kids or one of the others to help watch them. Besides, you've been planning this for the last week or two! Go and have fun!"

Chuck reluctantly nodded and went back inside. With Shard keeping an eye on the kids, the two could finish packing up and making their way to the event.

Now, what was the worst that could happen?

....famous last words to ever be spoken as Manic kept stealing toys from not only his brother and sister, but from Tails and he somehow stole the pacifier from Alexis! Shrad had to put him in time out twice, but it clearly wasn't working.

So best option was to just...carry the tyke around, and Manic was not happy. He was furious and was throwing a tantrum because of it. Great. Amazing.

Sonic and Tails were bored and wanted to go outside and he couldn't leave them alone outside because Meg would straight up murder him if she found out.

And all of this from the first two hours! Shard groaned as he attempted to call some of the others.

First was Larry and...

"Larry, I need your help," Shard stated loudly as he was trying to keep Manic from screaming in his ears sensors. "Can you come and help me out watching a few kids?? I'm stuck until, like, maybe tomorrow!"

"Sorry, Shard, but me and Harvey are taking care of Silver. He's got a cold and hasn't been feeling great in general."

"Tell him to stop getting sick!" Shard groaned. "I'm sorry, that was rude, but still, he needs to stop."

Larry shrugged (or at least Shard imagined that he would shrug if he could see the lynx) as he replied, "sorry....maybe try the twins? They should be able to help, right?"

Aaaand wrong Larry was as Shard rang the up the wolves and was told,

"Can't."

Shard ran a hand down his face and then tried to stop Manic from climbing up his face. "Why not???"

"We're trying out this...dating site and-"

"Why is everyone trying to date this week??"

"Because no one wants to do it on Valentines' Day!"

".........ok, fair. But I really need help and I don't know who else could help!"

"Maybe Mrs. Rabbit? She does have a couple kids."

"I'll try her next; talk to you later, Lyco."

"Leeta."

"Son of a-"

Shard hung up as Manic finally started to either tire out or was thinking of how to escape from the robot's grip now. The robot was debating on who to call next when the door knocked. He sighed as he set the green hedgehog down and went to the door. He opened it and saw to his surprise and shock a skunk with a bandanna and one glove on.

Geoff cleared his voice and started to speak, only for the robot to slam the door in his face and bracing his back against the door, as if it would keep the skunk out of the house. "Hey!" his voice shouted, muffled by the wooden door.

"Not today, Satan!" Shard yelled back.

"Yeah Satan!"

The robot's attention was directed towards Manic who just grinned widely. ".....I just taught an infant how to say 'Satan'. ......well I'm getting dismantled by the end of this chapter," he muttered to himself. He could feel the door being pounded on as the skunk was trying to get him to open up again. "Geoff, you're not coming in! You were still working for Naugus last anyone saw you!"

"But he's not in me!"

....wait what?

Shard opened the door and stared at him. "I'm sorry, what?" he asked. "Like....what on Mobius are you talking about? ‘He's not in you’?"

Geoff looked a tiny bit relieved as he saw the robot. “After you and the others stopped one of his plots, Naugus took control of my body and after arriving here, Naugus has been gone!”

Shard stared at him, holding out one hand to keep Manic from escaping from the house. “.....I thought this was a story that doesn’t involve drama,” he said.

“I....beg your pardon?” Geoff asked, staring at the green hedgehog that waddled into view.

“Satan!”

“Manic, no!” Shard groaned and ran a hand down his face. “Gaaah, I hate this...look, what do you want?”

The skunk cleared his throat as he stood a bit taller. “I recently came upon the realization that if....Naugus was expelled from my mind and with...” he started to explain, noticing that the other kids were starting to gather to listen as well. “A-and with...several hundred people being here, I wanted to... see if....one of them was my wife and...I needed to talk to Sir Charles about it.”

Shard crossed his arms, not looking really convinced and when he glanced at the kids, Sonic and Tails were giving him big ol’ puppy eyes and Sonia was now hugging the skunk. Oh jeez, they really believed him, huh? He vented and rolled his optics. “Look, if you wanna talk to Chuck, you’re gonna have to stick around for....a day or two.” He held up his servo as the skunk started to protest. “The guy isn’t here, won’t be back until either late tonight or tomorrow. I’m just house-sitting along with babysitting. ...also I’m pretty sure that I’m not going to survive the rest of the day so you’re helping me with babysitting.”

Geoffrey frowned and nodded. “If it gives me a chance to talk to the man, so be it.” He looked around as he counted the kids. “What happened to the green one?” he asked, the two adults watching as the pink hedgehog pointed out the door.

“...Sonic, we have to find your demonic little brother!” Shard yelled, starting to run past everyone, before the skunk held out a hand. “What are you-??”

“Who is all in this house right now?”

“Oh! Oh!” Sonic waved his hand. “There’s, there’s me and Sonia and, and Tails and his little sister!”

Oh right, Alexis. Shard looked nervously back into the house, trying to figure out what to do. He didn’t want to split up and leave Geoff alone in the house or with the kids but he didn’t want to leave the kids alone or waste time while Manic is doing Gaia knows what and-

And Sonic zoomed off and quickly came back with an angry Manic in tow.

....oh.

“.........ok so who’s up for some lunch?” Shard asked as everyone went back inside. “.......you know I thought that today was going to be crazier with him doing that.” Well, maybe they could go to the park later since Geoff was sticking around to help.

....but that’s gonna be for the next chapter.


End file.
